Thirteen batters produced nine runs in the third inning to lead the North to a 10-5 win over the South in Monday’s West Central Illinois Summer Prep Senior All-Star Game at Jim Sundberg Field.

Twenty-one seniors from eight area high schools competed in the second annual all-star game in Galesburg.

Five Annawan-Wethersfield Titans were invited to the all-star game — Trey Hannam, Tyler Litton, Kegan Jacobson, Cody Phillips and Zach VanWassenhove — and played on the North squad. Dayton Ince of Kewanee subbed at catcher for Jacobson, who was unable to attend due to a work conflict.

Ridgewood was represented on the South team by Jacob Cole, Nick Ragan and Dusty Werner.

Other schools represented in the game were Mercer County and Orion for the North; Galesburg and Knoxville for the South; and Rockridge had a player on each team.

Jeff Parsons, Galesburg native and head coach of the Annawan-Wethersfield Titans, knows it's a good experience.

"I think this senior game along with the summer prep league that Arnie (Gonzalez, Galesburg High School head coach) has started is really great for the smaller schools," Parsons said. "We have so many multi-sport athletes, it’s hard for them to play much baseball in the summer. That's changing with the start-up of the prep league."

The Titans and Ince all had a hand in the North’s big inning.

With the game tied 1-1, Litton started the scoring in the third inning with an RBI sacrifice fly.

Ince delivered an RBI single to score VanWassenhove and extend the lead to 5-1. Hannam singled and scored on a bases-clearing triple by Mercer County’s Tanner Matlick, and Phillips crossed the plate on a wild pitch.

Toss in a pair of South errors, and the North held a 10-1 lead when the top of the third concluded. That proved to be all the offense the North would muster as South pitchers Ian Milligan and Drake Sykes of Galesburg, Nick Ragan of Ridgewood and Carson Cheesman of Galesburg held the eventual winners hitless in the final six innings.

The South chipped away with two runs in the fifth, and single tallies in the eighth and ninth, but the deficit was too much to overcome. Ragan belted an RBI triple for the South in the eighth.

Matlick worked the first three innings and earned the win for the North. Mercer County teammate Darrin Harrison pitched the middle three innings and A-W’s Phillips worked the final three innings.

Hannam and Ince had two hits each for the North, and Hannam scored a pair of runs. Litton knocked in two runs for the winners.

Knoxville’s Derek Ratermann took the loss and Sykes led the South offense with two hits and two RBI.

Page 2 of 2 - "This is a great experience for everyone and the players from the smaller schools getting an opportunity to play some of the Galesburg kids and also play at Sundberg Field — one of the truly fine facilities for high school baseball," Parsons said.

(Robb Strack of GateHouse News Service also contributed to this story)